I Offer Unsolicited Writing Advice!

On Thursday I will be submitting my latest piece to Indie Ink, a website that takes writing submissions based off  writing prompts that are matched with authors. I have submitted to Indie Ink in the past - nearly of my Hannah Sketches are based off of the Indie Ink challenge prompts, and this week I will add another, my first since the end of January.

I'm not sure what it is about writing prompts that make it so much easier for me to write a short story. Though I've been writing for years, what I write tends to swing between short blog posts and 60K+ word novels. I have never considered myself a master at the short story, and I am only starting to believe I have any talent in it at all based on the feedback I've gotten from Indie Ink. Hannah's story has become really important to me, though. I guess I am just musing that perhaps I am creatively blocked lately, and without a little push from a prompt or a friendly suggestion, I may not write anything at all. 

Working for Scope, it seems that it may be the same for a lot of other writers. I've heard a lot in the past few weeks, "I really want to write, but I just don't know what to write about!"  Could it be that we all work better under a little guidance and pressure? Can the expectation of others be what is really driving me to create?

At any rate, I am thrilled with the burst of creativity I've seen among my friends and peers lately. People are starting blogs left and right, submitting to Scope all sorts of great opinion articles, blogs, and amusements.. It feels really great to be at this place I am in right now, surrounded by like minded people who seem to actually get it, you know? 

We aren't all going to be published. We aren't all going to win awards for our writing, or be paid for it, or be recognized outside of our own little community.. but in my opinion, that isn't the point. Well, it's not the most important point. 

To be creating - to be putting oneself out there to be seen through words and pictures and ideas - it's awesome. And we should be proud. Because we are the brave ones. 

Writing, like all forms of artistic creation and expression, takes time, patience, and determination. To those who have tipped their hats to writing, you are my comrades. So, if you are struggling with self-doubt over silly things like talent, I give to you the best piece of writing advice I've ever encountered, from Brian K. Vaughan (who was a writer for LOST!)

WRITE MORE, DO OTHER STUFF LESS

That’s it. Everything else is meaningless. You can take all the classes in the world and read every book on the craft out there, but at the end of the day, writing is sorta like dieting. There are plenty of stupid fads out there and charlatans promising quick fixes, but if you want to lose weight, you have to exercise more and eat less. Period. Every writer has 10,000 pages of shit in them, and the only way your writing is going to be any good at all is to work hard and hit 10,001.

By my estimation, I've only purged about 2,999 pages of shit out of myself. I have a long way to go, but at least now I get to make this page shitting journey with friends.

Levels.

Well, this has been a weird week so far, I'll say. 

I've done some things I can't say I'm very proud of, so I won't say anything else about them at all, but I've also had some fun with new friends and old that has surpassed the fun I've had with any other people in my life lately, so I guess that makes up for anything else that's questionable.

There was some news I got this week though that is the best I've heard in a loooong time, and I have a feeling the news is just going to keep getting better.

I had a meeting with Elise's kindergarten teacher on Monday and found out that Elise is reading two levels above where she should be at the END of the year. Kindergarteners should be reading at a level two right now, and at a level four by the end of the school year to be considered "at grade level." 

Elise is at a level six. 

The book in the picture is her favorite one right now. She reads the entire thing to me all by herself, and I am starting to think that she has it mostly memorized, but I am going to let her have that confidence for a little while longer before hiding it away and pushing her farther on. 

"Mooooom, I'm reading." She said to me right after I snapped this picture. She was pissed that I was interrupting her reading skillz to take a shot of her doing it. 

Oh, well. It's for the memories.

I'm so proud of you, Elise. 

Today's balls.

I have mentioned this before, but I feel like I have a million balls in the air and that at any moment some of them might come crashing down around me and I will just fail. Perhaps I take on too much at once?

I haven't done any writing challenges in weeks because I have been trying to get ready for that super secret project that I have been working on - now we are less than a week away from the scheduled launch date and I am scrapping things and starting over. I haven't told my partner this yet, but I suppose if he wants my help he will have to deal.  Long story short, since I don't want to reveal much before the launch, I offered to create a website using Wordpress. However, it's been ages since I've managed a Wordpress site, and frankly, after using Squarespace for so long, I don't really want to use anything else, ever. 

I figure that if I am going to be the manager on this project and do most of the work, I have to at least make it enjoyable for me, right? I don't want to struggle with Wordpress when I can sail through things happily with Squarespace. I should seriously be a spokesperson for them. I just love the company that hosts this blog so much.

So yeah, there's that. There's also been a lot more writing of my secret porn stories. I haven't published another one yet, but I finished one yesterday and I want to get its sequel written before publishing so that I can market them before publishing a third and then bundilng them into an anthology. Yup, I have a plan. I really want to make 2012 the year that writing pays off - literally. I've spent way too much time lately on the erotic writer's forum, way too much time gaping over other people's sales figures and the fact that most of them on there are making thousands of dollars a month and have quit their jobs. Yes, I am fueled by my desire for the money. It might not be becoming of me, but whatever. There it is. I want to write for a living and I am really giving at a go, so unfortunately more creative and friendly bits of writing are going to take a backseat in the meantime. I'm okay with that. 

And that's just the stuff I've been doing online. My life? Sometimes I think I just want to go live in a hut somewhere in the woods where no one can bother me. I'm pushing more people away lately than I ever thought I would, and yet I am not doing it with any sense of regret or apprehension, I'm doing it with relief. Because just as I am pushing people out of my life, people who I feel have been toxic for me, I'm pulling in people who are just the opposite - it just takes... time. Something I always feel is in too short supply.

So anyway, that's what's up. Busy busy and feeling like my blogs are falling flat and being boring lately - another thing that I want to change. One day at a time..

Falling Down

Last night, I fell down. Twice.

The first time I was coming out of a door with my friend and secret project co-conspirator and I just missed a step like an old lady and went down on my knee, but then I rolled and landed on my side and my ass. My knee was skinned and my pride was hurt, but I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and went on with life. 

I was SHOCKED that I had fallen down. SHOCKED. I haven't fallen down, like REALLY fallen down, in years and years.

Imagine my surprise when a few hours later I fell down AGAIN. 

The second time I should have seen coming. I was outside Bar 33, trying to get my buddy Sebastian's attention so I could compliment him - really - as being the only person who actually gave me a birthday gift on my birthday. He wasn't paying attention though, so I tried kicking him in the ass, but he grabbed my leg and held it, and everything just fell apart. I stumbled and twisted around and started going down, and to add insult to already serious injury, I fell on the same knee I fell on the first time, but I also smashed my face into a window, my glasses fell off, and there were WAY more witnesses.

Needless to say, I'm sore. But there is something that is very very necessary to say:

Kiss your baby's booboos. They hurt. Next time Elise falls down, I am not going to just say "Eh, you're a kid, you fall down all the time, big whup." Next time, I am going to hold her, kiss her, love on her, and give her a booboo bandaid or ice pack if she wants one - because damnit, I wish I had someone around to do the same for me.

Take Off Your Sunglasses

One of my friends is the excutive assistant to one of my other friends, and a generally very stressed out guy, if you know what I mean. One of my other friends is a booking agent in New London. When people like this are friends with each other? Bands like this come to town. Allegedly. 

On "Friends"

Last night was pretty great. I went downtown to see a rock show all on my own, which is not something that I usually do. I usually roll with my homies, the quiet one among a group of confident, artsy, funny friends. But I just haven't been feeling as friendly as usual lately, if you couldn't tell by some of my blog posts. 

I find that when I do go out on my own, without anyone to tell me that they'd rather to this, or go there - I have a better time, and I find (maybe not better, but maybe) different people to hang out with that I normally would not. Working for Daryl's campaign over the summer made me lots of new aquaintences that are quickly becoming new friends, and the time I spend with them is fun and free of drama and hangups and the weight of everything that has happened in the past - because we have no past. It's so unbelievably refreshing to spend time with people who I don't have grudges or baggage or bad thoughts between. With new friends, it's hope and fun and positivity all the way, and lately I've been doing everything I can to seek out new experiences with new people. 

See, I've never fancied myself a good friend. I can't even hide that fact about me. When things get tough, I often get going, and it is nothing to be proud of, so at least, I feel, that if I own up to it and don't try to hide it or deny it, I save at least a little bit of face. However - and here's the catch - it's not that I jump ship from friends when things get tough for THEM - I do it when it's tough for me. 

The truth of it is, I just have a very narrow personal definition of what a friend is, and it's very self-centered and selfish:

Friend: (n) 1. Someone who you enjoy spending time with. 2. Someone who never makes you feel bad about yourself.

It's simple, really. I'm ditching "friends" to make my life better and more enjoyable for me. In the last few years, there have been a lot of people in my life who I've spent time with and called friends, but I never felt that closeness, love, and yes, devotion, the way I feel those things for Alisha and Brian. Oftentimes I've sat in houses and at bars surrounded by "friends" wishing I were someplace else entirely. I haven't enjoyed the time I spent with them. I am so terribly sick of feeling like time has been wasted with people I didn't want to be spending it with.

And worse? I've had "friends" who have kept me up at night with memories of things they said about me or other people I care about - ugly, hateful things. I've had "friends" who can't get themselves out of their own judgy pants, who seem to glow in the hot light of putting other people down. And really, that is what gets me the most. If you make a joke, even if you are "just kidding" and "don't mean it" - but if you say things and they hurt, and you laugh and I balk? Are you a friend? 

No. Not by my definition. 

Alisha and I spend more time together than I've spent with any other person in my adult life, Brian is the only other one who comes close, and now Dan, Alisha's husband, has become another person who I've grown close to and consider to be a real friend. 

With Alisha, I can reach back into a decade of memories - ten years of memories with a person I have always been close to and cared for - and can I can count on one hand the times she has actually made me upset and feel bad. Once, I was very upset over something that was going on with Elise when she was a baby, and Alisha said something that seemed at the time to belittle my personal plight. I was mad, I was annoyed, but I forgave her. It was a misunderstanding. Then there was that time she started a book club and held the meetings on Mondays when she knew I couldn't go because I had Elise, was raising her by myself and couldn't leave my house at night. That annoyed the shit out of me, and the only reason I never made a big deal out of it is because the book club fizzled out after one book. Years later, after I brought it up, she apologized to me for that. She didn't realize at the time, she says, that I wouldn't be able to make it. I forgave her. Obviously. Then there was the time she had this crazy potentially catastrophic thing going on in her life and she waited nearly a week to tell me about it - and of course after I'd already found out most of the details. In a way, I was hurt that she didn't come to me, but at the same time, I knew exactly why she didn't - because she already knew what my reaction would be to her news and she knew exactly what I would have to say, and she was right. 

There are no jokes at my expense. There are no behind the back complaints or shit-talking. There is no hurt, no shame, no resentment, and no anger between us, and that is why we've been friends for ten years. 

One of these days I am going to have to publish a manifesto: I'm sorry, people I've called friends. I was just kidding. I'd rather not see you all anymore. 

Until then, I guess, until I own up to this and have the talks I need to have with people to peacably and hopefully not painfully remove them from my life - I guess until then I'll just remember the smiles and the laughter and the fun I have with people who don't have that word "friend" attached to them. They are just beings flitting through my life, making me happy with their lives. It's what I like right now.

Shhhhhh....

Everyone tells me their secrets.

No less than three times today did I hear the words "Don't tell anyone I told you this."

I guess it comes from being the kind of person who doesn't talk about herself often. I like to keep myself to myself around people I don't know all that well or don't have close relationships with. I mean, generally I like to keep things in my life drama-free and relaxed. Other people? Not so much.

What I keep finding, time and again, is that people are very much afraid of what others think of them, and that it is the fear of rejection from peers that keeps people from doing the things they want to do or being the people who they truly are.

That's pretty sad, and I guess I'm just saying - I'm glad I'm not like that.

---

Big things are coming! 

I will be posting this weeks Indie Ink entry on Thursday, and it's going to be a good one! 

Also, I have been working on a big project that I haven't mentioned on the blog yet, and it's getting to be the time when I will share it, and sharing is something I can't wait to do. 

Now, I am going to lay in bed, watch That 70's Show, and eat Ben & Jerry's Coffee Heath Bar Crunch. Nom.